City With Strictest Guns Laws in America Reaches 40 Homicides for January

A bloody weekend in which eight people were killed and six wounded has put an abrupt end — at least for now — to hopes that Chicago was at least putting a lid on his frightening homicide rate.

With a few days left in the month, the nation’s third-largest city now finds itself on the cusp of its deadliest January in more than a decade. The news comes just after Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy had announced that after several violent months, Chicago had seen a drop in homicides at the end of 2012 and for the first few weeks of 2013.

Police say the homicide rate is a reflection of the city’s gang problem and a proliferation of guns. Chicago has for years tried to cut off the flow of guns. It has what city officials have called the strictest handgun ordinance in the U.S. But police officials say more needs to be done and that penalties for violating gun laws should be stiffer.

Among those killed over the weekend was 34-year-old Ronnie Chambers, who was shot in the head with what police believe was an assault weapon. Such guns are banned in Chicago but can be purchased legally in the suburbs or nearby states. Chambers is the fourth child of Shirley Chambers to fall victim to gun violence.

“I’d pray for God to protect Ronnie and keep him safe day and night,” Shirley Chambers told the Chicago Sun-Times.

With the weekend shootings, Chicago now has 40 homicides — the exact same number as last January. With a few days left in the year, the city could reach its deadliest January since 2002, when it had 45 homicides in the first month.

Chicago’s homicide count eclipsed 500 last year for the first time since 2008, but last week, McCarthy announced recent figures showing homicides had dropped. The city saw a 16 percent decline in the fourth quarter of 2012 and a 22 percent drop in the first weeks of January.

McCarthy wants lawmakers to increase jail time for those who are caught with illegal weapons, including for felons who aren’t allowed to have them and for so-called straw purchases, in which people buy guns for others who aren’t supposed to have them.

Former community organizer and renowned skeet shooter Barack Obama was unavailable for comment. Meanwhile, in a rush to break some records for the month, eight more people were shot Monday night.

One Response to “City With Strictest Guns Laws in America Reaches 40 Homicides for January”

Actually, if Chicago could keep these tragedies down to 40 a month, they’d be improving.
Most of these shootings are gang- and drug-related. Wasted young men shooting other wasted young men, many of the shooters to become the shot. It’s not because they’re black, although most are, but because they lack family, structure, opportunity. And that lack has more to do with policies that Obama supports than with policies I support.